Friday, March 25, 2011

Paperback 396: A Thousand Beds / John Dexter (Companion Books 521)

Yours for: Not for Sale (Donation to the collection from Doug Peterson, god bless him)

Best things about this cover:

A cover that answers the question: are there *female* Oompa Loompas?

I can't even begin to imagine what I'm supposed to be imagining is going on here.

Her forearm stand is OK, but she needs to extend up through her feet, tuck her tailbone, and look down between her hands. Also, lose the hipster dork with the baby oil.

Few things less sexy than the entire above-the-neck area on the kneeling lady. Her hair appears to be modeled on a toilet paper dispenser.

I'm giving this shame-stunt a 7. It's memorable, in its way, but there's a general aura of ennui that hangs over the whole scene. If you're going to do shame-stunts, I think your heart should really be in it. Also, though I can't hear her, I'm gonna say that kneeling lady was a little pitchy.

Best things about this back cover:

Love this back cover style: "WEIRD PHRASE... nonsensical sexed-up text ... WEIRDER PHRASE!" You can find it on a Lot of sex paperback back covers in the late '60s.

"VICE VOTES!?" I mean ... that's not even suggestive. It's like it was generated by a Mad Libs, came out stupid, but they ran with it anyway. Makes about as much sense as "VICE PENCILS!" or "SHAME STEREOS!"

"Mark Vista had left his mark on every woman worth having" — it takes a lot to gross me out, but I think this line did it.

Then I almost shot through the ceiling. Sally had slipped her moist tongue into my armpit[1] and was making swift circular motions. Her tongue stiffened as it darted into the bottom of one armpit after the other [2], whipping the hair into a wet lather [3].

I longed to take her head and take it to fuzzy-wuzzy land [4]. She'd probably think it was an ice-cream cone [5]. But in the meantime, what was the rush? I knew before the hour was out I was going to get my ashes hauled by this classy broad [6].

"Hey, baby, I was bored with 69s, but so long's we keep drinking that bottle of paint stripper, this new position the 96's got'o be the best position ever!"

What is it with this guy and armpits? He's even got the upside down Oompa Loompa's feet shoved up his right one!

And as for the other Oompa Loompa, she seems to be saying, "Hey, baby, I keep try'n'o remove this invisible stretch sock but somehow it never seems to come off!"

It's that cover line 'Their shame-stunts scorched the underground!' which worries me, because when you add to it the peculiar brown puddle near kneeling Oompa Loompa's right knee, the two toilet rolls on her head and the back cover's 'Vista had left his mark on every woman worth having', you start wondering if these marks were skid marks!

There's no way this guy was a hipster beatnik type - the beard gives away he was obviously Amish, hence his cockamamie take on what constituted perverted sex.

The angles are all so off in this picture. As near as I can tell, Chin-Beard has his right leg somewhat behind him with the foot turned slightly inwards. Meanwhile, his left leg is in line with the rest of his body, but the foot is turned 90° outwards. Forearm standing OL is completely behind CB, yet her legs pass from behind him to in front of him, without her turning her hips!. And kneeling OL seems to be both in front of and to side of CB.

Also, weren't bouffants out by 1967? (OK, my aunt wore one into the 80s, but still.)

Something about the guy (but not the women) reminds me of some artist who did a lot of SF covers in this era, but I can't put my finger on it.

BTW, remember Ben Stiller's movie "Flirting with Disaster" (directed, if I'm not mistaken, by David O. Russell, director of "The Fighter)? Well, that too had armpit licking--a man licking a woman's armpit. Wasn't any sexier that way around either.

Having actually read the book, I can say that it's better than the section quoted might indicate. A fairly creative work lacking - for the most part - the kind of crudity that makes most written porn a thoroughly cringe-worthy experience. Contains very few of the crude words for various body parts that fill most porn, never once mentioning the idiotic "cum," or - if I recall properly - the ugly and demeaning "cunt." "Cock" is used once or twice, if at all. The only mildly-embarrassing word is the oft-repeated, rather juvenile-sounding, and probably satirical "bubbies." And it actually has a plot of sorts.The cover art is by far the worst part of the book, and the comments I read here are relatively mild. Fact is, I never would have bought the book based on that.

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